In their short life, fledgling Melbourne rockers Salmon Sisters have rehearsed in all manner of spaces. “We had a shed, a bedroom, a studio in an old lingerie factory, then we had none of them for a while,” says 19-year-old singer Delilah Reynolds.
Eventually, they found a garage – which is just as well, as this summer they will be one of the headline acts of Garage Band, a showcase of up-and-coming rock music at Federation Square.
Announced on Thursday as part of the Open Air at the Square summer program, Garage Band will bring together 20 acts – including headliners The Gnomes – across four hours and three stages in an event that is equal parts professional leg-up, community building exercise, and party.
The brainchild of musician/curator/creative director JOF (aka Joseph O’Farrell), it was born in 2021 as part of the Always Live program conceived to reboot the local music scene after COVID.
“I was living in an apartment block in Fairfield at the time, and this young punk band had moved upstairs, and I watched them for a year not being able to play a gig,” he recalls of the idea’s origins. “They were awesome people, and I just thought, ‘What if I make an event that could engage young musicians to play again, in the most public space possible, and they got to connect with a whole heap of other people their age?’”
What it’s not, he insists, is a battle of the bands, because its focus is on collaboration and connection rather than competition.
“It was about building a peer group, and using that as a launching pad so they can record music together, tour together, meet each other,” says JOF. “It was about rebuilding a music scene for young people who hadn’t had the chance to go out in public and play gigs for a whole heap of reasons, but mostly because they’d been locked down.”
Each band gets to play just one song, but they also walk away with a professionally shot video of their performance, a vital aid for promotion, booking future gigs and building a fan base.
Just as important, they get the chance to connect with a bunch of like-minded people.
Salmon Sister’s Edie Mitchell – at 21, something of an elder stateswoman of the band – played at Garage Band in 2023, with a different outfit. “We met so many people our age who were in the same position of not playing gigs before, but being really talented and having a lot of fun,” she says. “I’ve watched a bunch of the bands go on and do crazy stuff, so to be asked to come back and do it again is really sick.”
The fact Garage Band is part of a broader culture of music at Federation Square is exciting to Vinnie Savage, the band’s other main vocalist (and guitarist). “A lot of the people playing will have been at those gigs [in the past few years],” he says. “And now you get to actually go up there and do it, which is pretty crazy.”
Among the acts who have graced the main stage at Fed Square in recent years is Eddie Current Suppression Ring, who are headlining Meredith next month. Also just announced as a late addition to the Meredith line-up? A certain Salmon Sisters.
It’s proof, perhaps, that the leap from garage to going places is not as unmanageable as it might sometimes seem.
And for Delilah Reynolds, it all points to the strength of the idea at the heart of Garage Band.
“You can’t really get anywhere as a band unless you’ve got good people surrounding you,” she says.
“Obviously, it’s important to care about your music and put your heart into that, but if you don’t have a good community around you, and if you don’t appreciate that good community around you, where can you go from there? I think that’s the most important thing about any of this.”
Garage Band is at Federation Square on February 13, 2027. Open Air runs February 4 to March 8. Details: fedsquare.com
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